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In less than a month, the picturesque town of Huntsville, most known for its towering pine trees and idyllic lakes, will be transformed into a high-security...

OTTAWA — Auditor General Sheila Fraser confirmed Friday she will investigate the security costs for the G8 and G20 summits, after receiving requests from the Liberals and the NDP that she open the books to see why the meetings are the most expensive in Canadian history.

“Given the costs of the summit, it is probably something we would look at anyway,” Fraser told Canwest News Service. “And given the questions that are being raised, we can probably do a little more work and provide some assurance about what the costs actually represent.”

Fraser said she will wait until the summit is over to begin her probe.

The office will probably examine whether proper planning was done, whether there was proper budgeting, and how the summit costs compared with past international gathering, Fraser said.

“It’s always hard to compare costs, especially when it’s other countries because not all countries record costs the same way,” she acknowledged.

Former CSIS director Ward Elcock advised Ottawa on security measures for the summit and stands behind the hefty price tag.

He told Global National that Canada could “certainly do it for less” — if it were to cut corners.

“I think from the beginning, the government has recognized that it is hosting 30 of the world’s most powerful and important leaders,” he said. “We have an obligation to provide security for them as they have done for us in the past and for other countries at other G8 and G20 meetings.”

The biggest security costs are tied to staffing, he said, including bringing in 19,000 officers — many of them RCMP officers from outside Ontario. There’s also the need to build trailers for them to sleep in and provide food for them to eat.

Canadians also need to realize costs went up when the event became a double bill, he said.

“We need two separate security footprints which adds up to a lot of people,” he said. “People costs are No. 1, after that it’s a lot of things.”

From bringing in enough armoured limousines to carting around dignitaries to making sure proper communication systems are in place so people can talk to one other, Elcock said incidental costs are numerous.

“I think we have done it with fiscal prudence in mind,” he maintained. “We’re doing it appropriately.”

Public Safety Minister Vic Toews said Friday that Fraser “is more than welcome to review the expenditures.”

He also said he will give Parliamentary Budget Officer Kevin Page “exactly the same access” as Fraser.

Page is conducting an assessment of his own, after receiving a request from Don Davies, the NDP public safety critic.

Toews also reaffirmed that the Harper government will release a breakdown of the security costs when the summits are over.

“It won’t be before the summits, it’s simply not possible to give you a total cost until the event has occurred,” he told reporters Friday at a news conference announcing plans to develop a new strategy to protect Canada’s infrastructure.

Page said Thursday his office already has started to work on an investigation and will put together terms of reference to carry out the analysis.

Fraser said she would like to sit down with Page to ensure they are not duplicating efforts.

Canada’s estimated price tag dramatically exceeds costs for past G8 and G20 summits, including last year’s G20 gathering in London, for which news reports pegged security at about $20 million. Security for the 2009 G8 summit in Italy was estimated at $359 million.

Fraser said she is skeptical about the reported security costs for the London summit, saying the figure “doesn’t seem right” and that she suspects the accounting was different in the United Kingdom than it is in Canada.

The G8 and G20 summits will be held in late June in Huntsville, Ont., and Toronto, respectively.

Canada was originally supposed to only host the G8, but the federal government opted to expand the summit to include G20 leaders after it became clear that the larger organization was the dominant one for dealing with the world financial crisis and other economic priorities.

The money is being spent by the RCMP, the Public Safety Department, and National Defence. More than half — $450 million — will be spent by the Mounties.

The government is basing its security spending on what Canadians experts say is needed to keep Canadians and world dignitaries safe, according to Toews.

The security detail is expected to include thousands of police officers, private guards and soldiers, intelligence analysts, aerial surveillance, closed-circuit cameras, motorcades of up to 50 vehicles, expansive three-metre-high security fences erected around the Metro Toronto Convention Centre and the Deerhurst Resort in Huntsville and airport-style security checks within wide security perimeters.

U.S. President Barack Obama, Chinese President Hu Jintao, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and French President Nicolas Sarkozy will be among the world leaders to attend.

Toews also emphasized that Canada is hosting two separate meetings, with two separate security plans, so the costs would naturally be higher than they would be for a single event.

Opposition critics counter that Canada’s anticipated bill, even when split in half, far exceeds security costs for any other gathering.

In Toronto on Friday, police said a significant portion of the city’s downtown core will be affected by the G20 summit — which runs from June 26-27.

“Never before have the two summits been held in one weekend, this has presented unique challenges for security partners,” said Chief Supt. Alphonse MacNeil, head of the Integrated Security Unit for the RCMP.

Toronto Police have designated an area bound by Yonge Street, Spadina Street, Queens Quay and King Street as a security perimeter. A smaller area around the Metro Toronto Convention Centre, the site of the meeting, will be fenced in.

A security fence will go up starting June 7.

There will also be “significant” traffic disruptions, enhanced parking enforcement throughout the downtown core, and closures to portions of the PATH system — a series of underground walkways in the city’s downtown.